One of my best friends lives in Joliet and she hates it when I say that, so I make sure to do it as often as possible 
For the record, Stateville is not in Joliet. There’s a whole 'nother city between us. Our prison, the Joliet Correctional Facility, was the old limestone building seen in the opening of Blues Brothers. (Hijack to the hijack: the large gate Jake walks out of is only for deliveries as it empties to a very busy highway (IL Rt 171). Although it looked good for the movie, he should have exited on the south side to the less impressive parking lot.) Besides which, according to our mayor, we are no longer a “prison town” nor a “casino city”. By his decree (::snicker::), we are to be known for our NASCAR track, our minor league baseball stadium, and our new water park. Personally, I like to think of us as a “badly designed downtown city”.
Oh yeah, and nothing will irk a Joliet resident more than mentioning the prison or calling out town “Jolly-ette”.
And now for the on-topic portion of our post:
True, I used to go there before they build the Bolingbrook one. Aside from a very bad after-prom dinner there, I don’t recall any hell demons there.
(Note: Not that I’m a huge Olive Garden fan, but it’s a relative cheap ‘nice-looking’ restaurant for a date.)
I’ve only been to the Olive Garden a few times, but every time it was great. (It was the same one). The ONLY complaints were the long wait-the place was packed-and the fact that it’s on a plateau where it gets so fucking windy it’s hard to walk through the parking lot.
The food-the food was so good! The best was the stuffed mushrooms. And the breadsticks. YUM!!!
Would this one be in Pittsburgh, perchance? If so, where?
My sole experience with the Olive Garden involved being kidnapped out of a hotel in Florida by classmates, which forced me to convince the seating lady that my pajamas were, in fact, proper dinner attire. But that Olive Garden was really excellent, and I’d love to find another one.
Yep, how’d you guess?
Sorry, didn’t mean to get all huffy about it. I’m really suprised more than one person had seen/heard of it. I couldn’t imagine doing something like that. I’m sorry it happened to you. 
Dude, it’s Olive Garden. It’s the TGIFriday’s of Italian food. That equals high turnover, poorly trained staff (in some) ect. ect. If you’re that caught up in the proper pronunciation of every dish, I’d highly suggest going to a more “fine dining” type resteraunt, where the servers actually care about stuff outside of what’s in the dish and what side dishes are included. :rolleyes:
Greensboro’s “Golden Fork” awards came out this week, given to local eateries by Triad Style magazine. The Olive Garden was the winner for “Best Salad”.
OG’s salad is pretty good and all, but “Best”? I can think of several I’ve had this year that were better, with the endive salad at Bistro Sofia topping the list.
I also don’t see the big deal about OG breadsticks. While I love fresh bread smothered in copious amounts of garlic butter as much as the next guy, it isn’t like OG invented this concept.
Dr. J
Hey, lezlers - don’t you roll your eyes at me. I’m not “caught up” in the proper pronunciation of every dish, but I would expect anyone who’s working in even a pseudo-Italian restaurant to have a flippin’ clue as to what they’re serving. Anyhow, that’s not even one of the reasons I’m boycotting the place, I was just noting that I was not impressed with my last visit there for a variety of reasons… one of which was the waiter’s lack of care.
And if you notice, since I DO care about eating good Italian food, I mentioned a much better restaurant where the staff does care. (It’s not really a “fine-dining” place either, but the dining there is indeed FINE!)
Maybe it was a rolleyes at the crappy staff?
Yeah, whatever. I don’t actually care. When I see eyes rolling, I go into Mom mode.
Besides, I hate being called “dude.”
Hey, Joliet Jeff !!
(Sorry, the Blues Brothers were on the tube not long ago)
I was wondering–if the waitress was so snotty and rude, why didn’t you just walk out? That’s what I would have done, no matter how hungry I was, and I’d make sure everybody knew why. But then, that’s me.
My favorite reason to laugh at the Olive Garden:
Chicken con Broccoli
Just from that name, I can tell it authentic Italian!
Alright, I don’t get out of the Quad Cities much, and I got Joslin and Joliet confused.
But, I still have heard of Joliet and I at least knew what state it was in.
For the time I posted, the meds I was on I think I should get at least half a point.
Thank you guys for being nice about reminding me that I was never very good with map skills.
While I understand your frustration, Morrigoon, as I used to be a hostess myself–very first job ever–I see a bit of irony in the fact that you are critiquing those servers for typecasting their tables when you just typecast Texas as a “hick state.”
There are racists in every state. There are bad waiters in every state. There are both in Texas.
And I bet there are plenty where you’re from, too, so get over yourself, please.
:dubious:
So sorry to offend. And mispronouncing the name of a dish is quite different from not knowing the dish. I spent the majority of my time waiting tables in Italian resteraunts, my family is Italian and I still have trouble pronouncing some of the dishes, sometimes. That doesn’t mean I didn’t care about my job, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about my heritage, all it means is that some Italian words have trouble rolling off my tounge. It’s the equivelant of climbing on the high horse when your server at Chevy’s doesn’t roll his r’s enough.
And don’t you pull your mommy trip on me. I won’t call you “dude” if you don’t lecture me like a child. :o
Wow. My first thread to go over 2000 views. Actually, I think it’s the first one to go over 200 views. I’d like to thank all the little people that made this possible. Mostly because little people are really, really short, and I think they should get all the positive attention they can. 
I’d also like to thank Lucifer for providing the dinning experience that made this a success. With any luck, any day now someone else will treat me with all the contempt usually reserved for those really smelly zits in the middle of your back you need to sacrifice a friendship over to get popped. You know what I’m talking about. Thank you ladies and gentlemen, I’m here all week, and don’t forget to tip your waitresses! … … …waitaminute…
No. The OG does not have the best salads. Especially if it’s the one outside of Hanes Mall. I have fond memories of my high school Latin club’s Christmas trips to Hanes Mall, which began with dinner at OG. One year we discovered the hot peppers in the salad. Do not eat the peppers. Good salads do not contain the fiery pits of hell in any form.
eh? They put pepperochini’s in their salads. Those are nothot. Subway puts them in their sandwiches as well. They’re pretty much the mildest peppers you can get. Somebody sounds like they need to work on their spicy threshold…
This could get ugly quickly, so let me be frank and get this over with. I realize that a lot of people get called out for being assholes and then they defend themselves by saying “I was only being sarcastic.” However, I really was being sarcastic for most of my post.
I boycott OG because of their discriminatory hiring policies (of which I was unaware the last time I ate there.) I was not impressed with the restaurant or its staff, and I did throw in “the waiter mispronounced the names of the food” more as a wisecrack than anything else. Yes, it bugged me, but let me reiterate - that’s NOT why I have a problem with OG. I was raised in a very ethnic Italian household, and it’s just second nature to chuckle when someone says “ghi-NAW-chi” - specifically because I understand that when you see a word spelled “gnocchi”, you couldn’t possibly guess that it is pronounced something like “nyongky.” Likewise ricotta, which I grew up thinking would be spelled “reegawt.” Italian is a goofy language.
My “yeah whatever” comment was directed more at j_kat_251 because you were obviously rolling your eyes at what I said, and not the “crappy stuff” at OG. And I really don’t care if you roll your eyes at me - you’re entitled to express your opinion. I roll my eyes at people all the time, here and IRL. The “don’t you roll your eyes at me” was also sarcasm - and it’s what I say to my recently-teenaged daughter on a daily basis. This is freqently triggered by her use of the word “dude” when she addresses me.
I realize too that this is a total hijack from the OP, and I apologize, but I do NOT want to give the impression that I generally indulge in the kind of behavior that I would criticize others for - where someone acts like an ass, gets called on it and then there are Pit threads upon Pit threads about it. Not my style at all, and I hope that lezlers understands that I was not trying to pick a fight.
No worries, Wry, thanks for the post.